Arduino Forum

Last September the Arduino blog stated that the 32-bit Due (beta version) would be released in December of 2011. Did the Arduino team in fact miss a critical milestone, or was the release date in that blog misspelled and they meant December of 2012 or 2013? Or perhaps the project was abandoned altogether? Whatever the issue, I think the user community, students, inventors, tinkerers, makers, distributors and vendors, in all countries here and abroad, deserve an explanation from Arduino. Delays are commonplace and excusable, especially when dealing with radical departures, like 8-bit to 32-bit ARM processors. But what is more radical is for Arduino to keep the whole world in the dark. Quid accidit?

In the past the Arduino team was very closed mouth about advance notice of releasing new hardware boards, often with just a week or two of notice. The Due was an exception to that rule, and I think they wanted to make a 'bigger' splash at the Maker fair. So now it's a month late, not so bad but an update on 'new' release date would be nice.

"Open Source after we make all the decisions and run prototypes with a select few, and then we'll publish what we did that you COULD change if you were interested in convincing the User Base that your idea was better."

Arduino is very different than free open source software, FOSS, projects I have been involved with.

Open source software projects sometimes have a benevolent dictator governance model http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/resources/benevolentdictatorgovernancemodel.xml (http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/resources/benevolentdictatorgovernancemodel.xml). Even in this model there is active engagement and contribution by the community.

The benevolent dictator model works because members are free to take the code and create alternative projects. In fact, this ability to fork is very important to the health of open source communities, it ensures that those involved in project governance strive to make the right decisions for the community,

This is not the case with Arduino. The fact that it is "open hardware" and most of the community consists of beginners means that there is little pressure on the Arduino team to listen to the community. There is no threat of their authority being overturned by users forking the project.

I don't see this situation changing as it did with early projects I was involved with. I worked on BSD Unix at Berkeley in the 1970s because control of Unix by AT&T was unacceptable. This finally evolved to Linux.

The Linux kernel is controlled by Linus Torvalds as a benevolent dictator. The Debian version of Linux has evolved to be very open and elects its leaders http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/resources/debianleader.xml (http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/resources/debianleader.xml).

The situation is out fault. Our community is too weak to do anything about it.

Not sure if I agree with your assessment of the Arduino situation as it relates to 'open hardware'. I think the differences in developing hardware Vs software are fundamentally different. Not even sure I have read a good definition of what 'open source hardware' even means. Just publishing the schematics could be considered one form of 'open hardware' and many project authors have done that in the past well before open source software project became popular or common. Perhaps it's releasing all design files including PCB files used to 'copy' the PCB design? I'm also not so sure that hardware development lends itself to collaborative design as easily as software development.

So whatever a correct or even useful definition of open source hardware is, I don't think that the Arduino as a company ever attempted to engage in an initial collaborative effort to design their hardware. The Due project seems to be the first where they stated they were or did release initial beta versions of the hardware to selected people for feedback before the final design is to be released for that project. We, to the best of our knowledge have not heard from any parties privy to the Due design effort.

Ultimately, the "Open Source" argument is academic. What we have here is a case of making a promise at a large venue with high visibility (Maker Faire) and then standing up the world without explanation.

I still believe Arduino will do the right thing and update the user community, the vendors and distributors. Because I'd like to think Arduino is like Da Vinci, not Berlusconi.

I think one of the reasons for the delay is this collaboration with ATMEL. "Open Source" cultures do not mix well with regimented, secretive, proprietary, corporate cultures like ATMEL.

We know we aren't going to see the VHDL from ATMEL or FTDI, or the internal schematics of the voltage regulators.

We DO expect to see how those many documented subsystems are put together to make a DUE.

Many have forked the earlier hardware Arduinos with good results.

The Arduino IDE System consists of subsystems, many from ATMEL, for which the source code is not available, plus various (I think) open source components. The IDE has been hacked pretty deeply by a few, like Ardblock (https://github.com/taweili/ardublock).

Hi, If you're interested in following the development of ArduBlock, mentioned above, there is now a discussion group here:http://groups.google.com/group/ardublock?hl=en

For those of us who want a widely collaborative development effort, I don't think Arduino is gonna be it.

A benevolent dictatorship has always been the most efficient form of government and of project management for that matter. As long as the bloke at the top stays sane and knows what he's doing :)

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For those of us who want a widely collaborative development effort, I don't think Arduino is gonna be it.

This is one reason I like the DuinoMite project. I think the hardware was a done deal by the designer but the software is certainly collaborative.

Maybe people aren't that interested in collaborating on hardware, I only got one response to my call to collaborate on a Due-like board and that was from a member that is mostly a software type (actually that was good because I'm mostly hardware). While it's easier in many ways to just do your own thing, however you usually get a better product if there are a few minds on the job.

I suppose a company can not be PURELY open source software & hardware, otherwise making a profit would be very difficult, especially with the globalized economy. The Chinese will always make it faster, cheaper, and although not the best, good enough.

Plenty of bootstrapped microcontroller modules are out in the market. Why did Arduino catch on so immensely? My guess: low cost, the choice of a common language (C), floating point math, analog-to-digital converters (missing in basic stamp) & other peripherals, a very good forum, and "open source". But the same can be said about leaflabs.com, so what is it about Arduino? How did they make it into Radio Shack stores?

I suppose a company can not be PURELY open source software & hardware, otherwise making a profit would be very difficult,

Adafruit.com says they made a lot of money while everything they sell is open source. There was a good New York Times article about it.

Why would I use the OPenSource info to build and populate an Arduino board when I can buy one for less than $20?? If I want to make a modified fork of that design to provide special functions, and I am going to make 500+ of them, that's different (I'm thinking of doing that right now)...

I suppose a company can not be PURELY open source software & hardware, otherwise making a profit would be very difficult, especially with the globalized economy. The Chinese will always make it faster, cheaper, and although not the best, good enough.

Plenty of bootstrapped microcontroller modules are out in the market. Why did Arduino catch on so immensely? My guess: low cost, the choice of a common language (C), floating point math, analog-to-digital converters (missing in basic stamp) & other peripherals, a very good forum, and "open source". But the same can be said about leaflabs.com, so what is it about Arduino? How did they make it into Radio Shack stores?

Add to the attributes of the initial arduino platform success is the fact that they released the IDE in three major OS versions, Win, Lin, Mac. Not sure any other offering at the time had that avalible as standard. As far as Radio Shack goes, they are a pretty late to the show as far as distribution goes, but can only help add to the user population. Only time will tell if RS continues to sell them as I'm sure they will drop them in time if sales don't meet some minimum expectations. At this point in time I think RS needs arduino more then arduino needs RS, as RS is having real issues with trying to figure out what their core business should be these days. They do seem interested at trying to at least explore going back to their early roots rather then just being a cell phone and Christmas toy store.

Mix is a little luck at having the right product at the right time at the right price with the right 'features', helped put the arduino platform on a successful track. I'm sure if you asked the project originators they would admit never dreaming it would be such a popular platform and that their original goal never involved trying to be the #1. There is certainly nothing technically superior about the arduino, either in hardware or software, compared to other offerings either then or now. I personally was attracted to it because it seemed to make learning and using C/C++ a lot less daunting a task compared to anything else I had come across at the time. Most 'beginner' platforms used some proprietary form of the Basic language which is always somewhat limiting as far as growth and portability goes.

February is here. The 32-bit Due is not here. Why is Arduino so tight-lipped about this delay? This failure in open-ness is disturbing.

The LeafLabs module called Maple seems like an excellent alternative. Not sure why it's not catching on. Priced at $45 US dollars, that's $20 less than the 8-bit Arduino Mega 2560. The programming environment in Maple is compatible with Arduino! It's based on Wiring C. If it ever comes out, the price for the Due will likely be higher than the Mega 2560 - so I predict the Due will cost around $70 US dollars. Arduino can prove me wrong. Anyway, some high level specs on the Maple:

There has been 2-3 long threads running about this and so far not one single response from Arduino Inc.

They aren't normally very active on the forum and that's OK because most questions can be answered by the experienced members, but this particular topic cannot be addressed by anyone outside the inner circle.

I would at least expect a "Sorry but we've had some issues" post but not even that. And has been mentioned a few times the press release stated that the design would be done in consultation with the community. Hmmm.

I suppose I get that you don't want to release too many details up front or you wind up with the Leonardo situation whereby there are so many clones out now that there's hardly any point releasing the real thing :)

Never the less I think people need to know exactly what is coming out or they may jump ship to Maple et al.

I have the Uno, Mega, and teensy and I have had no problems using LCDs, SDcards, and buttons.

However, the Maple has driver issues with Windows 7, that take a work around provided by someone outside of the LeafLabs team. The language is almost Arduino style but, not many of the libraries work. The LCD library has bugs that only allow you to use one line on a 2 lines display :(. I have posted about the lcd issue with no response. There is certainly no "Playground".

The processor and board are wonderful but, I am already frustrated that somethings that I though were simple do not work easily with Maple. I now have the task of learning libraries to try to fix problems myself.

If you want to see some of it for yourself, read a few pages of questions on their forum and look at how many are unresolved.

Olimex Maple is not the same as the original LeafLabs Maple. Olimex is a foreign company that literally cloned & copied Leaflabs, and not very successfully. They even copied Leaflabs' wiki page. Blaming Leaflabs for Olimex shortcomings is like blaming Apple Inc. for problems with Chinese iPhone clones.

I don't wish to attack Leaf Labs or anyone associated. I just feel that the Maple still needs more development to make it as usable as Arduino products.

The problems I have had are the same as the people who claim to have the L.L. Maple.

The Olimex uses the same chip, bootloader, pin out, and IDE. It may very well be that it is not the same as a True Maple but, so far the problems I have encountered are common among other users that claim to have the L.L. Maple

I want badly to use an ARM chip. The Maple is the easiest to use ARM board that I have found yet. I have not had as much success with my STM32 Primer2, or my STM32F4 Discovery board other than using example sketches. The Maple is the first ARM that has a programming language that I consider friendly to a hobbyist.

I also want to say that I have been looking up commands and trying several things to see if I can fix the LCD library. I am not a programmer but, I think it can be done. I have not given up yet.

I think people are getting mixed up between an open source hardware project and an open source hardware development.The Arduino is a product made by a bunch of people in a business. The product of their work is then made freely available for others to use without restriction. That is the open source hardware aspect.

The Arduino is not a community based development project where every one can chip in and contribute and a project grows. A good example of that sort of anarchy is to be found in the RepRap project. I am not being derogatory calling it an anarchy, it is what it is and anarchisms can be extremely good things.

The arduino team do consult and take note of some of the things here but they keep their distance. It is their project, their ball, so they can do what they want. All this lack of announcements is regrettable but as I say that is how they want to play it.

The Olimexino-STM32 (http://www.olimex.com/dev/olimexino-stm32.html) is not the "Olimex Maple." It is an Arduino and Maple-like board.

LeafLabs, the original makers of the Maple (http://leaflabs.com/devices/), licensed their software and hardware as open source. Anyone is able to build upon it and Olimex has.

Fair enough, I will use the proper name if I refer to this board again. Often on this forum, if someone uses a Atmega328 with the Arduino IDE, they refer to it as some sort of duino or Arduino compatible. I was using that line of thinking when referring to the board, obviously you still knew what board I was referring to but, I understand your why you prefer more clarity. I was trying to be clear that I had the Olimex and not a Leaflabs board.

Here in Genoa (Home port of the Lifeboats from the Costa Concordia), it's pronounced like " DO A" (A like the letter A is pronounced)

OverDue Due in Italian would be "in ritardo due"

We may as well play with words if we can't play with hardware :)

Hey think of it as the perfect spaghetti sauce. It will be ready when it's ready, no sooner and no later. Speaking of later I think it's time for a nap. Retirement is great, it's worth the wait also. ;)

David Cuartielles here. First I should apologize for the delay in releasing Due, it has nothing to do with any of the possibilities described in this thread. Our relationship with Atmel is pretty smooth, our design process has been good, and we have materials in stock. The reason for the delay is that we are overwhelmed with the release of Due, Leonardo, Lottie Lemon, the new servers, the backup system, some other boards we haven't even spoken about yet ...

We have been reassigning responsibilities within the core group since we are far too busy to be able of attending everything as we used to and making sure hardware makes it to developers is one of our main concerns. This adjustment process has taken time, we have even opened an office in Torino (Italy) to handle a lot of the small day-to-day things that an open source project like ours requires.

If I look at this thread I can see three topics:

- one is about the actual Due, when and how- one is about the Arduino platform, why it is successful or not- a final one is about the openess and not openess

I will try to elaborate on the three topics, but we should probably separate this into three threads and discuss things separately.

ABOUT THE DUE

Asap is the answer. We are working together with Atmel in polishing the BASIC Arduino experience to the board: coding in the IDE, uploading to the board from any platform, monitoring the serial port from any platform.

We have changed processor a couple of times because we want to have something powerful enough to cover many of the things you guys are already doing with Arduino and with other compatible platforms plus adding the power of the 32b. And don't worry it is a standard ARM processor, everything it can do with it at low level is already available in the datasheet of the processor chosen for the task. Please do not ask about the processor, this is the one secret we keep until release date. When the developer's edition of the board comes out, you will be able of making anything you want to on that core: Real Time OSs, basic Arduino functionality, DSP control ... up to you, but you will have to know how to make it ... therefore the name "developer's edition". The initial hardware design is very much like the current Mega, but we need some sort of form factor to reach you guys, let's discuss once the first release is out there.

ABOUT THE PLATFORM AND ITS SUCCESS

It is true that we did never expect to get our platform as far as we have done. We wanted to have something that could work for the lecturing scenarios we were facing at different European/American universities where we were teaching. We had years of experience in different platforms and some of us (Tom to be precise) had even successful books out there talking about how to make prototypes.

We realized that it was time to make things a little better and one of the most important ones was to reach as many as possible by:

- having everything open: designs, documentation, software- being crossplatform: making tools that could run on any computer, anywhere in the world- being very active teaching to people, not caring about their initial resources or experience- making it competitive in price: we would not include any expenses coming from R&D into the actual design, like others did before us

These four rules required an effort from our side that nobody had been making before. In the "being active teaching to people" chapter: e.g. I spent 2006-2007 travelling the world teaching at different venues. Arduino would NOT pay anything for that, I had to close a deal with a certain university somewhere, make sure they would get the equivalent to the current "starter kit", teach the class, help the teachers there get used to the tools for them to move on, etc. The big difference between hardware and software -in my eyes- is that you need to be there, in a one-to-one situation to help people get started.

Have you ever heard of a company that has people working for it FOR FREE? This is not very different from what happens in the open source/free software world. You sell your expertise as a programmer, because the code is already there.

To be honest, the reason why I, David Cuartielles, was doing this is because I saw a great opportunity for me to write my PhD thesis in educational technologies. The whole world has been my playground to experiment with this platform and try out with people from all over how they felt about digital technologies. It was NEVER about making money. Not for me, and not for my partners. Each one of us has his own story about why Arduino was/is relevant for us and why we were doing it. I believe this is what many of you have also seen in Arduino, a chance for you to build your own personal relationship to a technology that you can use in your everyday life and that you can profit from.

In some countries I was invited by the local ministry in education, like in Argentina, where I made courses for teachers to evaluate what digital technologies meant for them. My courses were not just about Arduino, but Processing, Puredata, linux, etc. I made, with the help of the maker of DyneBolic, a live CD that included all of the above plus open office, etc. I had, and have, a political agenda in openess, specially when it comes to education. This was far before Arduino was part of the Debian/Ubuntu distros.

Summarizing, the reason of Arduino's success is putting hardware at the same level of "fairness" as open source/free software. Highlighting that hardware is nothing that happens inside a magic black box.

ABOUT BEING OPEN

Then again, about the discussion whether our process until now is open or not ... well ... making hardware, or open hardware is far more complex than just making a board. Some companies force you signing an NDA on the features of one of their chips before you can even start prototyping on them. Look e.g. at Raspberry Pi's FAQ and their statement about open hardware ... they just cannot be, period. We made no compromises, we release everything, but until Due we have been in the situation where we were just releasing small modifications on our previous designs. It made no sense to ask anyone to discuss about the boards ... there was no disruptive innovation in them.

In 2010 we used a whole lot of the Arduino savings in launching an even in NY where we invited relevant members of the Arduino community to come together and discuss about the platform, about the future of it, about how to make it better, how to get people even more involved ...

... one of the results of that meeting was that people wanted to be more involved in both the core development (and please join developers@arduino.cc if you want to be discussing about the development of the core) as well as being part in the hardware development. During that meeting Massimo introduced the idea of the development made at the Mozilla Foundation where they could reach very quick iterations in design by involving users in a certain way. At that point, internally we had been talking about the 32b version of the platform and we thought it could be a great opportunity to create the so-called development batches for people like most of you involved in this discussion to be a part in the creation of the next generations of boards.

We spent a long time during 2011 thinking about how to make this and we decided Due was the right step to take. We wanted to have Due demo'd on stage at Maker Faire 2010 in September. We wanted something more than the announcement. But there were technical issues beyond the Arduino team that made it impossible. For you guys to know, we brought our software development team all the way to NY because we believed possible to have a board on stage. They worked overnight to make sure the bootloader did the job and, unfortunately it was finished after the end of the show. Our idea with the Due was -and it still is- that we will make the basic things work on it, we will release it, and will invite you, that are interested in discussing about how to make things, to be part of the discussion.

When you want to make something cost-effective, and you want it to reach as many as possible, you need to make sure you ship your first 1000 units in good shape, and that you have enough parts to send the second 1000 in a week, because that is what happens in open source hardware: you make it and if it is successful, it will be copied (probably also improved) ... the only way to make things good is being there first, and making it right at first. Well, in this case we want the second 1000 to come with your improvements. We need to make a board that works, and on top of that we can all play and make something better.

So being open for us is to put everything we learned in the process of making things back to the community. And also now to bring the community into the development process of the software and the hardware.

I hope this answered some of your questions ... it took me some time to write it.

/d

as I have manifested this at plenty of conferences, open software gatherings, etc,

DavidThanks for the effort.If you place a price on one of the 1000 first due's I (and probably many other) may want to order one before you made it :)For sure if it has debugging capabilities.Best regardsJan

We realized that it was time to make things a little better and one of the most important ones was to reach as many as possible by:

- having everything open: designs, documentation, software- being crossplatform: making tools that could run on any computer, anywhere in the world- being very active teaching to people, not caring about their initial resources or experience- making it competitive in price: we would not include any expenses coming from R&D into the actual design, like others did before us

David, First a very large thanks for all your work and dedication on Arduino. I'm sure it took you on a wild ride. Many of us have enjoyed the trip a lot also.

Could you answer, or point to, one more thing:

- How can a moderately technically proficient person (Hardware, software or both) get involved right now: - Get in the queue to buy an early Due version - Get connected to the development / beta effort and contribute

I've read quite a bit, without being in the active group, and I still have no idea how to do those two things.

I know there are risks in adding people and connections: "Brook's Law" = "Adding manpower to a late software project will make it later!". I worked for IBM and I have met Frederick Brooks and I have worked on a software project that lost $11,000,000 proving it yet again. I believe.

Arduino has answered why the Due is late. Basically, they ran into technical difficulties and busy with other projects. They were very wise to avoid another release date for the Due because this forum will keep them honest. Glad to hear the Due is in work. I suspected a complete abandonment of the project. Glad to read I was wrong. Let's face it, Italy is ground zero for the renaissance of modular microcontrollers.

After reading David's response from Arduino, I realized the crux of their success is two-fold and difficult to emulate. First, the purposeful grass roots exposure at colleges and universities and usage by eager and energetic students made Arduino extremely popular. That kind of exposure is very difficult to buy. Then came "Make" magazine - more exposure - every month. Second reason for their success: price.

Two questions for Arduino: (I know, this is a long shot)1. What is the projected price for the basic Due?2. When will the Due be available?

Impressive and eye opening documentary about the story of Arduino (link below). The opening title and music reminds me of dada art. What I find striking about this story is how international this whole Arduino endeavor is. Also striking is that the main force elevating Arduino is not $profit but rather education, for technical people and artists. Anyway, excellent production.

Yes it's a shame, David C gave a pretty good explanation the gist of which (I think) is that there is too much to do an too few people to do it.

Many of us have offered to help but I guess throwing more engineers at a problem is not always the thing to do (there's a famous saying about that isn't there?).

That said you think you could farm out some things, like porting the libraries across. Many of the modules would be autonomous I would think, give SPI to one person, I2C to another etc. Maybe that is in fact what's happening with some selected developers, it's just such a big job.

Yes but the Raspberry Pi is some what crippled from an I/O point of view. Of the 56 GPIO pins there are only 14 brought out to the header. There are a number of expansion boards in the pipe line but the "official one" in effect sticks an arduino on these pins and gives some port expansion. But this does not include I2C and will cost about £100, that is 4 times the price of the Pi itself.

On the main board there is no built in A/D and the drive on the 3V3 digital pins is some what minimal, so no driving LEDs at any great brightness without an expansion board.It looks like it will be more of a programmers system than a physical computing platform.

My Pi's delivery has been put back from the middle of April to the start of May. I was lucky and managed to get an order in on the first day but about 12 hours after the start.

It looks like it will be more of a programmers system than a physical computing platform.

Looks like it. I just spent a couple of hours reading some of the RPi forum. Many of the comments are interesting, things like "Wow it's got I2C, I'll be able to talk to a sensor", "Can I connect the RS232 to USB?" and about 20 questions about if the IO is 5v or 3v3, and that's just on one thread!

It seems that the audience for this is coming from a different place to the average Arduino user.

Yes, Gert is the hardware guy for the entire project, and his board is his own sideline.I asked if it was going to be open source, but he said as he had spent a lot of his own money on the project so far he hoped to recoup some of it from sales of the boards. Can't exactly blame him for that, but it would not be the way I would have done it. He also seems to be trying ( and failing at the moment ) to implement the debugWire in the 328 system. So you can tell he is not so very experienced if he thinks such a simple processor needs this.

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Many of the comments are interesting

Agreed, the comments fall into a few narrow categories:-1) Sycophantic - you are all doing such a wonderful job ( despite the evidence of such a botched launch )2) The amazed innocents - wow only £100 for an interface board we have to pay £800 for a control board at my school.3) The pissed off - you promised a computer at $25 and now I am expected to pay tax and carriage on top of that!4) The Linux code nerds - I am porting "big bits 6.3" to the Pi ( who knows or cares what that is )5) The haven't got a clue about interfacing but this sounds like it should be an impressive question - what is the pitch of the header.

One post from David C a few weeks ago and that's been it. It's all very hush hush, even the processor being used is not being revealed, presumably to get the jump on clone makers. I even offered to sign an NDA but got no response.

There's nothing on the developer's mailing list either so either bugger-all is happening or it's going on with a select few out of the public eye. Hmmm, some of the more senior forum members have been very quite lately, maybe they are too busy porting code to an ARM :)

Looks like the Arduino design teams bit off more than they can handle?The Arduino Due is at least 7 MONTHS late but who's counting.What I believe why they announced the Arduino Due in Sept.2011 was to freeze others from developing their 32 bit platforms.Guess what? No one bought it and now other platforms like the PIC32 will be eating their lunch. ]:)

We have changed processor a couple of times because we want to have something powerful enough to cover many of the things you guys are already doing with Arduino and with other compatible platforms plus adding the power of the 32b. And don't worry it is a standard ARM processor, everything it can do with it at low level is already available in the datasheet of the processor chosen for the task. Please do not ask about the processor, this is the one secret we keep until release date.

I get why they are doing it (the clone makers must be circling) bit it's a real pain. I'd like to be studying the data sheet to get up to speed or even buy an eval kit.

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And don't worry it is a standard ARM processor,

That is useless information, almost nobody cares what the core is, presumably an M3 but that doesn't really matter as the average person's C code will just run as before. It's the memory and IO that are of interest and that does vary a lot with different chips.

We haven't been given any useful information, what about the IDE, a new one based on VS (as per AVS5/6)?, the old IDE (please no). Eclipse? How many serial ports? 5v or 3v3 IO? Debugging support?

I guess we just have to wait, but it's been 7 months with no information is getting it's getting pretty tedious.

Yes but I assumed it would be from Atmel and one of that series.The Raspberry Pi on the other hand has a processor that you can't get the data sheet of. It is from Conexant and they have a habit of making you sign an NDA before they will give you the password to open their data sheets.

They have released a partial data sheet for the Pi processor but that just covers the Arm peripherals on the chip. Nothing about the video engine or any of the hardware details. It is a very bad company to choose but the guy doing it works for them.

Yeah I see they are all calling for schematics, not much chance by the sound of it.

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partial data sheet for the Pi processor but that just covers the Arm peripherals on the chip

I guess they have to do that so the community will get involved to write drivers.

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the guy doing it works for them.

I bet he has access to the good stuff, sounds a bit like undocumented system calls that (supposedly) allowed M$ to produce better software than their competitors.

I think I'll stick with Arduino, the RPi looks nice in many ways but it has too much of what I don't need and not enough of what I do. But I guess the target demographic is not curmudgeony old farts who like to DIY :)

What do you mean by that.I'm asking because I'm currently working on a serial monitor in eclipse and I'm thinking about supporting 3 serial ports simultaneously.I got it "kind off" to work (hard coded com name; only one port ....)If you have experience on this any feedback is welcomed.Best regardsJantje

RobThe more I know the more I know there is llitle I know.So just like you I'm aware there is little I'm aware about :smiley-eek:Therefore I'm always on the lookout for people who are aware of things in my space of interest. If they are "aware" of something it may save me lots of time.And given the huge amount of unawareness saving time is a hard job. Luckily we know the answer is to all questions is 42Best regardsJantje

I think I'll stick with Arduino, the RPi looks nice in many ways but it has too much of what I don't need and not enough of what I do.

Very well put. If only the RPi had some ADCs and more GPIO, I think it would dethrone Arduino as the microcontroller king. RPi has nailed two very important aspects that made Arduino great: 1) Price and 2) Grass roots exposure at schools & colleges. I'd say the exposure has been viral & global & immediate.

With ADCs and more GPIO and better documentation, RPi can do to Arduino what Arduino did to Parallax basic stamps.

One clear advantage RPi has over Arduino is the programming language. If I could choose any language I'd choose Matlab script or Octave because of the vector programming power over matrices. That's a pipe dream of course. My second choice would be Python, RPi's default language.

I will be watching RPi closely. In the meantime, I plan on buying the 32bit "Due" when it comes out in October (my prediction). It'd be nice if someone found a way to link the RPi to the Due.

Ethernet shield and network cable? (in most cases you can connect 2 network cards by just plugging a network cable in the network cards without using a router)You'll have to use fixed IP addresses in this case.Best regardsJantje

Pinout of the Raspberry PI GPIO header -> http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/384So it has I2C, serial and SPI. I'm waiting to buy a Raspberry till there is enough online documentation on how to use these pins. I would like to connect an Arduino to the Raspberry for a robot. For a programming noob like me the raspberry is to difficult to program but if there is enough online info/tutorials then maybe it's worth buying. I bought a book to learn Python some time ago, might be useful :)

Is the end near for Arduino? If it's only a matter of time before the overly hyped RaspberryPi gets drivers for SPI and I2C, and eventually adds 12bit ADCs (or even 16bit), and if R-Pi keeps the price equal to or lower than the Arduino Mega 2560, the end is near. Just like vacuum tubes when transistors came out.

Single board computers (or microcomputers) will overtake microcontrollers in the foreseeable future. I think it's in Arduino's best interest to expedite the 32-bit "Due" or dump it and make the leap to a microcomputer.

No, it is a totally different beast to the arduino and is not well suited to a lot of arduino like applications.It is very poor at generating precise timing and has very feeble output pins and it has an operating system on it which is always the death knell for any real embedded application.

Model B owners using networking and high-current USB peripherals will require a supply which can source 700mA (many phone chargers meet this requirement). Model A owners with powered USB devices will be able to get away with a much lower current capacity (300mA feels like a reasonable safety margin).

So I guess it depends on having model A or Model B.I've even seen people advising going for 1 A.

RandomVibeI think that running a OS on a system is the long term solution. Think about phones running OS-es.I don't like this tendency but it can not be denied. How far away this long term will be is another matter.But even in this future I think there is a place for Arduino (or PIC boards in general) probably smaller but still there.

That is what went "wrong" with desktop computers and that is why the arduino is so popular. It is a programmable hardware device not a computer.The Pi, sits a bit between the two but it leans more towards the computer than the controller. That is why it will not kill the arduino as long as people want to do physical computing, that require real time control.

I'm sorry to have to disagree. When microsoft started with their windows CE I thought it wouldn't last. It is one of those rare occasions in life where I was wrong 8).Now those small device OS's are everywhere. I don't think it is a good idea and I feel it is a waste of resources but still this is the way we are going as a society.

Quote from: Grumpy_Mike

That is why it will not kill the arduino

Quote from: jantje

But even in this future I think there is a place for Arduino (or PIC boards in general) probably smaller but still there.

I agree there will be a market for Arduino when the OS devices are in the lead. This for several reasons. So Arduino will not be dead but I feel artists and beginners will -in the future- be more likely to use high level applications to "train" or "configure" their applications rather than code in a low level language as C++.But the people needing: real time, or wanting small power usage, or plenty of other things will still be with Arduino.Best regardsJantje

When microsoft started with their windows CE I thought it wouldn't last. It is one of those rare occasions in life where I was wrong smiley-cool.

I have worked on windows CE systems for a living. It is rubbish, there are increasingly less and less of those systems about and you will find there are far more ARM chips about.The only good thing about Windows CE is I got sent to Las Vegas on a CE conference, and got to walk down the Grand Canyon at the weekend.

It was reported that Bill Gates said that the Apple business model only worked if you had Steve Jobs.

When Steve was told this he said that the Microsoft business model only worked if you didn't mind releasing crappy products.

If the Due never comes out, things "Arduino" will still continue on IMHO. The Due is simply a addition to an already successful product, it is not a fix or update to something that needs improvement. If it does arrive we will be able to add more sophisticated projects to the Arduino ability list which would be great!

Apparently a big announcement is coming "after Easter" according to the Arduino team on twitter. "After Easter" can mean anytime between now and October. Let's face it, Arduino's track record for meeting commitments is spotty at best. Why October? Because their evil business partner, RadioShack, will probably want the "Due" on their shelves in time for Christmas shoppers.

My Christmas wish... aside from the "Due" release, I'd like to see Python for an advanced Arduino board. Advanced how? The natural progression beyond 8-bit was the 16-bit XMega chips, and now very soon 32-bit. Seems like the natural progression after 32-bit are microcomputers like the overly hyped R-Pi. Beaglebone is sort of there but its too expensive and its main programming language is Java. I suspect Arduino will eventually join that market too.

I was in Cyprus last week.There Easter started on Sunday and goes on for 5 days (not sure this is inclusive or exclusive sunday).So today (or tomorrow) we are the first day "after Easter" 8)Anyone knows a later Easter in 2012?Best regardsJantje

On topic - I see no much incommon between Arduino and R-Pi. Having IO pins doesn't make it a controller. I guess optimal solution would be having both boards at once, communicating and minding each it's own business. I wonder how soon a communication shield will appear for Arduino-RPi (to stack them together, not utilizing USB). Same goes for Due. I don't believe a computer can replace controller or vice-verso. It's like screwing nails and hammering screws.

It seems to me that this whole debate is about which viewpoint you have.Fx. I see the RPI as a new Ethernet/Video Shield, while a RPI freak will see Arduino as a new RPI shield (they only have their Gert Board)

If you want an Arduino with the performance of the Due now, just buy a Uno32:

You can't say that because you don't know what the performance of the Due will be. The processor decision has not been announced.

Exactly 8)You don't even know which software and hardware incompatibilities there will be between 1.0 and the due. :smiley-mr-green:Unless you are part of the team working on the due; in which case we would appreciate some information ]:D

All the latest Atmel Cortex-M3 parts have about the same performance, AFAIK.

The PIC32 used on the Uno32 has about the same performance as the Atmel Cortex-M3 that will be used on the Due. The PIC32 only runs at 80 MHz, but it has a five-stage pipeline, whereas the M3 only has a three-stage pipeline. I just can't see there being much difference in performance between the Due, if it ever goes into production, and the Uno32.

A few people have actually got prototype Due boards. Perhaps someone with one of those will provide some timings so that the two can be compared.

The SAM3X offers high-speed USB and Ethernet, which would make the Due better than the Uno32 in some ways. I'd guess that they are using the SAM3X4C:

http://www.atmel.com/devices/SAM3X4C.aspx

Unfortunately, it looks like it's going to be some time before they are available. I'd say it will be six months, at least, knowing Atmel's habit of announcing new devices long before they actually have working silicon. None of the SAM3X family is available, in fact.

At 84 MHz, the SAM3X will actually be slower than the PIC32 used on the Uno32.

All valid points, just because there is complexity that doesn't mean the average person has to deal with it. In fact that's what the Arduino idea is founded on.

It will be interesting to see how some things go, for example explaining to beginners how some analogWrite() commands produce a square wave and others an analogue voltage. This is where bad choices for function names eventually bites you in the arse. And if you differentiate between a "normal" analogue output and a DAC output what do you call the new functions, realAnalogWrite() :)

There is the occasional push for "advanced" documentation that doesn't gloss over the hard bits, maybe this will be an opportunity for a bright young lad.

One thing using a 3X will do is squash the constant "generate a random number" threads, it has a TRNG.

For what its worth I received some SAM3X samples today - 144pin. Production is supposed to be July, though Digikey is saying it can ship May24th. The big advantage to the Atmel low cost ARM is integrated Ethernet, USB OTG, ADC12bits and 96Kb ram - and wide Vcc range.

A case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing... For Atmel to announce before Arduino that the 32-bit Due will be based on the SAM3 is perplexing. This scoop should have broken on the arduino.cc homepage first - a fresh new photo of the Due should replace the dated picture of the Uno.

I suspect the 32-bit Due will be released soon with the SAM3 product line. I'm sure this is not a coincidence. Atmel needs all the publicity it can get. So can Arduino for that matter, after failing to meet it's original before-the-end-of-2011 commitment.

Hmmm, I got into arduino as a less painful way (vs using a propeller or basic) to investigate possible solutions for a server "airflow/temperature/hardware-state" monitoring and control platform.

Actually, the hardest part of doing useful things with an MCU isn't the features (or their lack) offerred by the MCU. The hardest part aboutdoing useful things in embedded systems-land is knowing electronics-design, and implementation 'well'.

For example: Doing PWM, won't matter a wink if one doesn't have their transistor "merit badge" hanging on the wall, and then of coursewe (as in me and my fellow web devs turned fearless electronics explorers) wouldn't be bothering with all this MCU stuff if we couldn't monitorthe fan speeds in realtime.

Welcome to pulse count and estimation hell.... So then we discovered frequency to voltage ICs, yay!

Then PWM came back to bite us in the arse.... The tachometer signal from those expensive 12k rpm fans? Um yeahthe PWM as amplified through the n-channel mosfets causes the power delivery to the fan motor to look like little slices ofquantum physical reality... Um, even the tach signal looks like some chopped up quasi synthetic square-wave wanna be...

So what I'm trying to say here is, I could literally care less when the Due comes out, frankly I'll probably order a maple mini anduse it to test 72 Mhz goodness, and when the Due finally lumbers out backed by the full faith and example arsenal of the arduino project,then yeah, I'll spring for one.

'But I ain't waitin' with bated breath... There's real work to be done... One of my new fascinations/temporary obsessions is the use of Attiny85/45 chipsas "PWM cores", "external sensor management nodes" and other cool program cycle-saving roles in an electronic circuit.My arduino nano can be made to program them and mouser sells the 85/45 for under a buck a piece.

Goodbye 555, hello superpowers.

So if/when the Due is finally released then 'yay', until then, it's time to earn my "dB-speak" merit badge.

Ah the joys of hardware implementations, the LAMP stack holds no terrors for those who have braved the icy waters of embedded systems work.

Thanks for the link. I did learn one thing from that Massimo's talk that was a big question to me and that was if the Due was going to be using the same IDE that all the other 8 bit arduino use. The answer I heard (I think) is that the Due will have it's own independent IDE, which I think is the correct way to go.

Why can't the Due and the AVR-based Arduino's use the same IDE, as has been done with the ChipKit Uno32?

It could but maybe they figure that the Due is for more advanced users and such people tend to be unhappy with the brain-dead IDE. Personally I wouldn't use the IDE for anything but a quick syntax check of some code I post here.

As Atmel are now using the VS-based dev environment maybe that's what the Due will use.

And I for one would avoid it like the plague, once you get an operating system into the equation, real time computing goes out of the window and you spend all your time fighting the OS and not concentrating on your application.Linux is great for people who don't want to actually do anything but love installing things.

That was not what I meant. I think installing Linux to a device with this little memory is kind of pointless.My point was rather to program the Due under Linux like it is possible with the ATmega Arduinos. And if the IDE is Visual Studio powered, this is not likely the case.

One reason that this is less than desirable is that it will add significantly to the size of the downloads (a completely separate gcc/libc/binutils set)

My 2 centsI don't think it needs to lead to more downloads. The Arduino IDE already foresees the possibilities to have other core libraries. The Arduino IDE -from 1.0 onward- also has multiple pin layouts.So it should be easy to download an Arduino IDE and add SAM3 or ATMEGA cores.My bet would be there will be an UNO install and a DUE upgrade. The due upgrade will then create a new folder in arduino/cores and maybe add folders into arduino/variants.This is all governed by the boards.txt file. So it would be really nice if it worked as follows: Install empty Arduino IDE; select your board in the IDE ; IDE sees the core and variant info is not existing and asks to download.I expect version "1.0" will not have this feature.Again only my 2 cents

My 2 cents[...]My bet would be there will be an UNO install and a DUE upgrade. The due upgrade will then create a new folder in arduino/cores and maybe add folders into arduino/variants.This is all governed by the boards.txt file. So it would be really nice if it worked as follows: Install empty Arduino IDE; select your board in the IDE ; IDE sees the core and variant info is not existing and asks to download.I expect version "1.0" will not have this feature.Again only my 2 cents

Great 2 ¢!

That's the way chipKIT MPIDE handles both PIC32 and Arduino platforms, Energia handles LaunchPad MSP430 and Arduino platforms, ... And so does my embedXcode (http://embedxcode.weebly.com/) template.

The relevant framework is identified by parsing the different boards.txt. Key information is the board tag.

The answer I heard (I think) is that the Due will have it's own independent IDE

Hmm. That's now how I interpreted what he said. I got more "we've incorporated the (chipkit) multiplatform capabilities in a way that we're happy with."

One reason that this is less than desirable is that it will add significantly to the size of the downloads (a completely separate gcc/libc/binutils set)

We shall see I guess. The fact that they have Due boards that they are presently passing on to beta tester strongly implies that there is also a means to program them so I suspect the Due IDE is available to the beta testers so it shouldn't take much for someone to confirm a new standalone IDE or an expanded existing IDE.

Not in this universe, but I think there's a parallel one where some lucky individuals are playing with beta versions. Unfortunately so far there's been no wormhole to allow the transfer of information between the two.

Not in this universe, but I think there's a parallel one where some lucky individuals are playing with beta versions. Unfortunately so far there's been no wormhole to allow the transfer of information between the two.

I'm not sure they are lucky individuals. I guess there is a "silence pact" and a lot of tests to be done. Everybody who has been active on this forum knows how silent the core team can be. So plenty of pressure for the lucky few.Off-course they have a beta board (they will probably own once the due is released); but how many bugs will they face given our 1.0 experience? How much time will they have invested?I sure do not envy them :)

Good point, it would be work really and I have my own projects to tinker with so I'm happy NOT doing it, and if lack if info is the price I pay so be it.

Quote

Off-course they have a beta board (they will probably own once the due is released)

Weeks of work for a board, I'll spend $70 or whatever when the time comes (maybe). Meanwhile I'm about to come up to speed with ARMs using LPC Xpresso boards. Not that there's much similarity because the IO is totally different but I've started writing HAL functions that should port to Arduino if I get the inclination one day.

Massimo mentions that Due will operate at 3.3V (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QS2y-nc3uPI&feature=g-u-u). I wonder if data pins will get converted and if it is a headache to do?Any news on when maybe?

Thats interesting that they are speaking about their new layout considering the Due will have more of a Mega layout.

Considering that Uno-sized shields can plug into already the Mega (although a number of them need to be modified/have additional wires run to function correctly), standardizing the pin so the Due can use the same pin layout as the smaller boards isn't far-fetched at all. Of course, there will probably be other pins beyond the Uno/Leonardo sized regon. However, they could all be just additional general purpose I/O pins.

I see your point that existing shields would cover the A6 and A7 pins (either making them hard to use or inaccessable), but remember two things. First, these are development boards and the pin layout can still be modified slightly for the commercially sold boards. Second and most importantly, the Uno only has A0 through A5 so any Uno-compatible shield would only use 6 "analog" pins. Therefore, at worst an Uno shield would cost the use of 2 analog pins, but should still function all the same.

Yea, thats true. I've never had a shield, although I have been considering one since its like 2 bucks and it separates a double row of 20 pins each to a point where I can smack it on a breadboard, but I don't wanna use it as a shield.

I carefully watched Massimo Banzi's presentation he personally gave May 19th, 2012, at Maker Faire (link below). I paid extra attention to the topic related to the 32-Bit "Due" and I heard two very important points: 1) the "Due" will be out some time in June, and 2) the price will be cheaper than a Mega (retails $65 USD at adafruit.com).

The Due is almost 3 months late assuming Banzi meant June 2012 and not 2013. I don't have a problem with Arduino keeping their product lines and release dates close to their chest. But if you make a public announcement, as was done in two Maker Faires, and you announce a release date, then it becomes a commitment and commitments must be honored. Missing a commitment is not serious if an explanation is issued. The Arduino founders and product lines are the best, and frankly, inspirational. I see Banzi as the Steve Jobs of open source microcontrollers. I'm sure one of the founders will do the right thing and give the Arduino community an update. Thank you.

While everybody is waiting for the Due, You could back this project on kick starterhttp://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kuy/galago-make-things-better?ref=category (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kuy/galago-make-things-better?ref=category)

They announced the Due will be released on Oct. 22. There will be an updated IDE to support the Due and all of the other Arduino boards. The announcement said the IDE will make it much easier to support new tool chains and thus add support for new hardware going forward. Not a lot of detail yet. There will also be a new program called " Arduino at Heart" to be something like the Intel Inside program. It's to allow products to show they are using Arduino at the heart of there product.

They announced the Due will be released on Oct. 22. There will be an updated IDE to support the Due and all of the other Arduino boards. The announcement said the IDE will make it much easier to support new tool chains and thus add support for new hardware going forward. Not a lot of detail yet. There will also be a new program called " Arduino at Heart" to be something like the Intel Inside program. It's to allow products to show they are using Arduino at the heart of there product.

I was kind of hoping they would use a seperate IDE to support the Due rather then shoehorn it into the 8 bit IDE, and therfore subject us 8 bit users to all the new bugs and 'features' the new intergated IDE will surely have."Aduino at Heart", sounds kind of corny to me, but I never did understand the marketing side of this business.

(also, this is supposed to be using the same structure that has been used in ChipKit (PIC32) for a while now, and more recently for Teensy3. The Arduino IDE has been moving toward this multi-platform capability rather gradually, and I wouldn't expect any major problems.) (Though some people rightfully complain about the increased size of the download...)

Did they announce the important details yet (price, what Arm chip is used as the base, what is the clock speed, what is the power draw, how much memory does it have, how many digital/analog/pwm pins exist)? I would have expected arduino.cc/en/Main/Hardware/ to have a new entry for the Due within minutes of the announcement being over.

(also, this is supposed to be using the same structure that has been used in ChipKit (PIC32) for a while now, and more recently for Teensy3.

Actually, for Teensy 3.0 I've been using the 1.0.1 IDE with only very minor tweaks, mostly adding options to boards.txt to change things like "avr-gcc" to to "arm-none-eabi-gcc" and extra options to be given to the compiler and an option specify the toolchain base path. Then I just put a generic arm-none-eabi toolchain in hardware/tools. If anyone's interested to see that modified IDE code, or the ARM-specific core library, just ask.

When they do release another IDE, of course I intend to add support for it.

Did they announce the important details yet (price, what Arm chip is used as the base, what is the clock speed, what is the power draw, how much memory does it have, how many digital/analog/pwm pins exist)?

The beta test boards given to various developers several months ago had the SAM3X8E chip. Shortly after the Maker Faire in San Mateo, many detailed photos appeared online. Here's a link:

http://robotgrrl.com/blog/2012/05/25/arduino-due-up-close-pics/

The SAM3X8E is pretty amazing piece of silicon. It has about 100 I/O pins (presumably 86 will come to the Mega-form-factor locations), 512k flash, 96k ram, high-speed USB, a fast 12 bit A/D, 2 channel D/A, ethernet mac, and an incredible number of other built-in peripherals. The A/D has 15 channels. There appear to be many PWM pins, some from timers, some from a dedicated PWM generator. The ARM core speed is 84 MHz. The datasheet has some power consumption info on page 1399... basically 76 mA with the core at 1.8 volts, running in the fastest mode.

Of course, this is merely from the chip that was on those boards months ago, not any recent info, but it seems unlikely they'd switch to another chip at this late stage.

I wasn't there. I'd like to go to the NY Maker Faire, but it just isn't in my limited budget.

But I do understand the need to keep the details quiet until official release. Just take a look at what happened with Leonardo. They published (buggy beta) bootloader source and the core with the pin mapping info in October 2010. That said publicly that Leonardo wasn't ready, but pretty soon many people created boards using that info. Most just published photos, cad files, etc, but some started selling them. It wasn't just a matter of a few hobbyists selling a couple extra boards they made. One of those "people" was Sparkfun. Several months before Leonardo released, Sparkfun sold many hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of their "Pro Micro" board, at $25 each, using the buggy bootloader (where the only engineering work on Sparkfun's part was a PCB layout and changing the vendor ID number) and instructed their users to uncomment the lines in boards.txt.

I can also personally identify with trying to balance the desire to inform people vs overly hyping "vapor" products. Even though it's probably profitable to push vaporware, I believe Massimo is a genuinely good person whose actions are guided more by ethics than money. He's had a pretty good history of guiding Arduino in a direction that's good for the community over the long-term, even if the short-term wait for products isn't fun.

It's also got to be a LOT of work running Arduino. Even just PJRC's day-to-day operation gets to be overwhelming at times (believe me, I definitely know *that*), and Teensy's usage is only a very tiny fraction of Arduino's. I know I've planned to do all sorts of things, but sometimes fallen far short of my goals, simply from a lack of time. Despite their incredible popularity, Arduino isn't a huge corporation. I'm sure it gets very, very busy.

Once it's released, this painful waiting and wondering will probably become a distant memory.

Paul is correct. If I heard correctly, the SAM3X8E is the chip on the Due.

They said it would sell for 49 USD.

It is being shipped to all the regular distributors, so that it will be available to buy on Oct. 22

They said the cause of delay was the wait for the availability of the chip.

Well, if only they had some sort of blog (http://arduino.cc/blog/) to post the details they talked about, then people who weren't at the NYC Maker Faire would have a chance to learn about it as well. :P

Well, if only they had some sort of blog (http://arduino.cc/blog/) to post the details they talked about, then people who weren't at the NYC Maker Faire would have a chance to learn about it as well. :P

I dunno, I think it is still vapour-ware. To my way of thinking, an announced product would have specs, pictures, etc. on the company's website. And the companies with even more of a clue will mention the MSRP in the announcements, publish it to the electronics press, and work with distributors so that immediately after the announcement, you can pre-order it. Maybe on October 22nd, it will be a fully announced product, or maybe not. Even if it is announced, we will see what the initial availability is (hopefully better than Raspberry-pi, but who knows).

Maybe on October 22nd, it will be a fully announced product, or maybe not. Even if it is announced, we will see what the initial availability is (hopefully better than Raspberry-pi, but who knows).

Its already been announced. In fact the reason it isn't out for purchase right now is because they are preparing for a release and the ARM chip that it uses isn't very widely avaliable right now. They said that it WILL be out for purchase on the 22nd. I don't see how you can still think its vaporware.

Maybe on October 22nd, it will be a fully announced product, or maybe not. Even if it is announced, we will see what the initial availability is (hopefully better than Raspberry-pi, but who knows).

Its already been announced. In fact the reason it isn't out for purchase right now is because they are preparing for a release and the ARM chip that it uses isn't very widely avaliable right now. They said that it WILL be out for purchase on the 22nd. I don't see how you can still think its vaporware.

Where is this so-called announcement on arduino.cc? Yes, it was evidently 'announced' at Maker Faire, but until they actually get around to listing in their hardware pages as an official product (http://arduino.cc/en/Main/Hardware (http://arduino.cc/en/Main/Hardware)), or at least having an entry on the main page that gives the specifications and pictures, it is still vapour-ware IMHO.

They talked about changes to the IDE that it will make it easier to add other compilers and platforms to the IDE but I'm not sure what they meant as they didn't go into much detail.I assume they mean the IDE can be modified to support chipKIT, netduino or other arduino style modules but don't know for sure.They also mentioned that a version of DUE would have internet embedded in the module with a future release chip. Again not much detail.They had the designer of the Atmel AVR talk but I fast forwarded through that as it appeared to be an Atmel commercial rather than an Arduino update. That took about half the time.

That's about 500% more that we've heard here or from any official source.

Where is this so-called announcement on arduino.cc? Yes, it was evidently 'announced' at Maker Faire, but until they actually get around to listing in their hardware pages as an official product (http://arduino.cc/en/Main/Hardware (http://arduino.cc/en/Main/Hardware)), or at least having an entry on the main page that gives the specifications and pictures, it is still vapour-ware IMHO.

Quoted for emphasis (although I don't personally consider it vapor-ware).

I only consider an announcement official if it's made to the general public through a direct company associated medium. Maker Faire is neither a general public announcement or a direct company associated medium.

Otherwise, I give it marginally better credibility, at best, than rumor.

I'm not sure where it is but massimo did say in the video that they are going to be updating the website "next week" which is now sometime this week.Although it was referring to "Arduino at heart", I wouldn't put it past them to wait to update the arduino.cc page for the due.

Massimo mentioned how people got the jump on them with Leonardo. I think they are going to get the Due released and update their hardware information at nearly the same time so that no one makes clones before the original is on the market.

Massimo mentioned how people got the jump on them with Leonardo. I think they are going to get the Due released and update their hardware information at nearly the same time so that no one makes clones before the original is on the market.

I completely understand and agree with these concerns. However, none of that prevents them from taking a couple of minutes to link to the World Maker Faire's YouTube video of the "Arduino Hour" on the official Arduino blog. :P

Look, we need to accept that whatever they DO spend their time doing..

Listening to the average Arduino user or reading "Their" forum isn't it.

O so true.I would add: Not even writing a blog entry ( on the release data of the due; without any technical specifications) for which they declined arduino community help stating they have a full time person assigned ]:D

Yes they now have a full-time community guy, he introduced himself on the developer's mailing list a few months ago and we've not heard from him since.

I would have thought the Due release and the huge delay would have been a prime example of where such a person is required, to pour a little oil on the rough waters and at least keep us as informed as possible.

I realise and agree with the (perceived) reasons we've not had any technical details, but the total vacuum on the PR front I don't understand. I've now spend a few $100 on LPC stuff and although I may get a Due and port what I've been doing I may not as well. OK no big loss I guess :) but how many people have wandered off to other platforms for the want of a few forum posts?

they now have a full-time community guy, he introduced himself on the developer's mailing list a few months ago and we've not heard from him since.

Michael Shiloh. Part time. As of early July. And I'd say he's been relatively active on the developer and teacher lists since then, mostly in the form of acknowledging suggestions on the developers list, and notably setting up the email list for Arduino "Issue" changes quite quickly after it was suggested.

http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,114395.0.html

Perhaps part-time isn't enough. OTOH, I'd suspect that the Due was under a "cone of silence", and "Community Manager" doesn't give him "new product announcement" privileges.

October 22nd is the last release date announced at the World Maker Faire in New York (9/29-9/30). Price: $49. Just when I thought Arduino would miss another commitment, I read it's been released according to "wired.com". Can this be true? "Wired.com" is a respectable site. It doesn't make sense to hear it there rather than here.

Several sites have been announcing "It's released" before the actual release. Sloppy reporting, if you ask me, but I hope it means that the Due is really going to show up...

Adafruit says "it's not a coming soon product" (for them), which I find a bit troubling. But then, they are all Rasberry Pi "traitors" lately, so perhaps they've fallen off the "preferred provider" list.

When it does come out, I'm hoping to find a few people who can do an in-depth 3-way review between Arduino Due, Teensy 3.0 and Leaflabs Maple. Anyone can do an "unboxing" or "new products" review with photos, specs and hype (but not actually running any real code). Someone who can actually spend some time running real projects and 3rd party libraries on all 3 and write a detailed article is indeed rare. Any ideas who I should ask?

Of course, so far I can't find any site that claims to have Due for retail sale. Likewise for Maple, except for asian sellers on Ebay.

I plan on compiling and running some of the code from the rcarduino blog on the teensy over the next week just to confirm portability but nothing that I do really stretches an UNO never mind a Due or Teensy.

For stretching the hardware you should try DIY Drones, thats one area where the size of the teensy will be a major advantage.

EDIT: The main reason I am interested in the Teensy and Due is for audio where speed and 32 bits will have a big impact. The teensy looks interesting for the DSP instructions which may make software filters a possible addition to Arduino audio projects.

Starting from today different resellers will have theirs online and the shipping cost won't be an issue.The quote comes directly from UPS so there is not much we can do about it.we're checking with them because we seem to get different numbers all the time so there is definitely something weird going on

Congratulations on the launch. Its good to see a hardware page, stock in the shop, and availability on a couple of online retailers, and its still only a couple of hours after the launch (which seemed to be at noon, western Europe time).

Also congratulations on the prominent warning about compatibility with 5V shields.

When you have a moment, please remember set the github repository to public, and update the "source code to the Arduino software is hosted by GitHub" link. Currently the link points to the 1.0.1 IDE source.

There's a very interesting 14 pin Ethernet RMII connector on the schematic, which I can't seem to locate anywhere in the photo. An ethernet shield using the RMII interface would be pretty nice (with a good library), rather than the W5100's rather inefficient SPI-based protocol.

I also noticed there's a new 4 pin debug header with nice, large 0.1 inch spacing, and the (way too small) 10 pin ARM debug is on the schematic, but not populated in the photo.

The 16U2 is no big surprise, but it's nice to see it controls both the erase and reset pins. Presumably it'll have slightly different firmware than the Uno version, to sequence the erase pin?

Something I didn't see on the schematic or in the photo is the Atmel dataflash chip that was present on the developer beta test boards. I guess it's safe to say that didn't make it to the final design?

These aren't urgent questions... just me thinking out loud about initial impressions seeing the schematic and a high-res photo for the very first time.

Arduino Due now available for order at Mouser (A000062)! Small quantity on the way with a large order coming in November.

-Tim

Just went to your link - I'm assuming the 36.99 price I saw was wrong.

It may not be wrong. Mouser often has cheaper prices than anywhere else for Arduinos. Arduino Mega2560 for ~39.00 USD: http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Arduino/A000067/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMt0re6d%252b2Rx9v%252bc%252bQEIaOW9 (http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Arduino/A000067/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMt0re6d%252b2Rx9v%252bc%252bQEIaOW9)

It may not be wrong. Mouser often has cheaper prices than anywhere else for Arduinos. Arduino Mega2560 for ~39.00 USD: http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Arduino/A000067/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMt0re6d%252b2Rx9v%252bc%252bQEIaOW9

Well, for 39.99 I couldn't resist. Just put one on order - site is showing them on backorder. Hopefully it won't be too long. Thanks for the info guys.

Is there a way to get around the price problem by having someone from the USA buy then ship to you or is it just the way the currencies work out? I am thinking it probably won't help but, it is a thought.

The AUS has been higher than the USD for a long time, so they should be cheaper here, not ~30% more :0

We normally get the "we have to ship them all the way to Australia" BS line but it's just as far from Italy to the US as it is to Aus. Heck I reckon Mouser is such a large customer UPS/Fedex almost pay them to do the shipping.

Quote

Is there a way to get around the price problem by having someone from the USA buy then ship to you

That would work, we'll see how things are after the dust settles. I've got some LPC code I wouldn't mind porting across, but it's not a priority at this point and I have other things to work on.

I don't know about you guys, but after reading the stuff in the Due forum and elsewhere on the internet, I'm very disappointed by the new Due. No ethernet header, no RTC support yet, only 2 IRQs... I know this will be added soon but it sounds to me like it was still released too soon. There is already talk of future boards with additional hardware features (like ethernet) being released. I have cancelled my order and will continue to use the Uno and Mega for a while. Mostly because I have 20 or so shields I built or purchased that won't work with the Due without level translators (what a pain).

That link redirects me to mouser.be, price there is €40.36. And that is without tax, so I must add another 21% + shipping.

It takes me to uk.mouser.com and gives me content in English and prices in Euro (40,38 €) but with the French-style decmal separator ("," rather than ".") :smiley-eek: so think it is storing language and currency preferences in cookies.

Welcome to the world of "geographical restriction" pricing. Yes, it seems the rest of the world is indeed getting "special" pricing from Mouser (and an increasing number of other retailers are starting to do this too, apparently), which has nothing to do with exchange rates, it is simply opportunistic pricing (we will charge in each market what we think we can get away with).

One way to get around the websites picking up your country from your IP address is to use a VPN with servers in the US (if that's the location you want them to think you are coming in from.) Your next challenge will be to see if you can get them to ship outside the US if you use the US website to purchase from. If not, you may need to use a postal forwarding service, or get a friend in the US to forward it on.

Sucks, but that's the price you pay for not being smart enough to be born an 'mercan. Good luck.

But don't feel too bad. It looks like Mouser felt the 'mercans were getting too a good a deal, and so have put their prices up too (considerably! $36.49 -> $48.95 > 34% increase!) I wonder if the original $36.49 was simply a pricing error, or whether it has been "suggested" to them by the suppliers (i.e., Arduino) that they fall in line and stick closer to the list price, at least while the launch is underway.

I'd kill myself before paying the au.mouser.com prices, though. Someone at mouser must have had a bad shrimp off the barbie, or got bitten by a rabid koala bear or something.

Well, to tell you the truth, I think even the US retail list of $49 is a bit overpriced, given the competition. You can buy a Teensy 3.0 from Paul for $19. http://www.pjrc.com/store/teensy3.html (I don't know what the pricing is on au.pjrc.com is, though, LOL!) I suspect though that once the official launch is over the original Mouser pricing for the Due of ~$36 will become more like the normal street price. So I think patience will be rewarded. Either that, or you will have to be willing to pay a premium for the privilege of being a pioneer (you know, one of the guys with the arrows sticking out of his back...) :smiley-mr-green:

As a customer, of course I want the lowest price I can get. When I saw Mouser had a low price, I immediately ordered 2 pieces. I didn't know if it was a promotional price or just a mistake. Since Tim (a.k.a. "MOUSER_EMBEDDED") posted the link to Mouser's order page, and Tim appears to a salesman from Mouser who has never contributed meaningfully to any conversation, I didn't feel too bad about taking advantage of the low price. I see it's now $48.95.

As someone who makes arduino-compatible boards, I actually think $49 is probably a pretty reasonable price for Arduino Due. First of all, they're making the boards in Italy, not China, and they're doing things like zero carbon footprint. At substantial volume, those aren't horribly expensive, but it's also a choice that locks out the absolute lowest possible cost production. Second, Due has a high-end ARM microcontroller and a LOT of parts on the board, plus a fairly large PCB built with a mix of surface mount and through hole parts. Looking over the schematic, they clearly went for a reliable, low-risk design rather then trying to optimize for low cost. For example, the 74LVC1G125 buffer between the 16U2 and the SAM3X could probably have been a couple resistors. Third, they are spending pretty substantially on engineering and also community building projects. Fourth, there is "healthy" profit margin for their resellers.

When the inevitable cheap Asian clones appear, it's a pretty safe bet they won't be incurring those costs. Well they'll probably incur #2, since they'll likely just copy the design verbatim, not even making the simplest of cost reductions like replacing that '125 buffer with a couple resistors. But they'll be using the cheapest/dirtiest Asian fabs, not spending anything on engineering or community (and they'll send all their customers to Arduino's community for support), and probably selling direct on ebay. Even then, Due isn't an inherently low-cost design, so I don't think we're going to see really cheap clones.

The SAM3X8E (sans errata) is a really amazing part. A built-in 480 Mbit/sec USB PHY is something very few other chips have (but how fast is really runs with software overhead remains to be seen). The SAM3X has a large flash memory and a pretty substantial amount of on-chip RAM. It's Atmel's largest, most expensive SAM3 part.

Then again, as a customer, the $35 + SD card price of Raspberry Pi is pretty appealing. Speaking only for myself, I would be hesitant to make any new hobbyist-oriented board that sells for more that $35.... but then I don't have a tremendous brand like "Arduino".

Its interesting that criticism is focussed on price. To me, the Due price (in Europe, which includes 20% sales tax) is fair. I think the strongest competetion is from boards that offer more capability (but are also more expensive).

For example Cubieboard (http://cubieboard.org/), at US$49, has much higher computation capability and decent graphics (yes, its not a real time board, and it has an OS):

or looking more at embedded solutions, the ArduCopter community (which started with a Mega2560 clone and then moved upwards in compute power and integrated sensors) seem to see the main benefit to them of the Due launch in terms of the multi-architecture 1.5 IDE (http://www.diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/arduino-due-arm-based-coming-on-monday). The actual Due hardware is cheaper but less capable than what they are focussed on, such as the VBrain (http://www.virtualrobotix.com/profiles/blogs/vbrain-coming) (highe compute power with floating point unit, integrated sensors) at EUR 199:

For the small, light and inexpensive ARM project the Teensy 3.0 looks great. For the larger, more compute intensive (e.g. audio processing) projects, I wish there was something more like these Arducopter/UAV boards, retaining the good compute capability especially the FPU, but dropping the airborne-oriented sensor package. I would have thought that not including GPS, magnetometer, 3-d accelerometer, gyro and barometric pressure sensors would drop 50 to 75 USD off the base package. Soething like that in Mega/Due style board layout would be very attractive (and yes, it would be around 80 to 100 USD).

The BeagleBone is quite nice. More expensive than the RasPi but much more capable, and it could be argued that it's better value than the Due. I've got one, with a prototyping cape (Bone capes are like Arduino shields). There are lots of capes available now.

It depends entirely what you want to do with it.Basically the BeagleBone is a Linux box with all the baggage that involves - no real time operation your thread can be stopped at any time. Therefore no multiplexing, software PWM, no uninterrupted A/D and D/A conversion for simple sound recording / generation, no exact timing of pulses, no driving stepping motors or servos.